"Beautifully written and performed by Sue McCormick - well researched, funny and ultimately very moving - my top choice of Festival show so far."

Christmas with the Watsons

PLAYS

No Fat Juliets - a co-production between The Dukes, Lancaster, The Oldham Coliseum and Ladybrain productions.A warm-hearted, laugh outloud comedy full of Northern spirit, songs and snogs with a lighthearted sideswipe at the pressures on women to conform to a physical ideal. Fun, fabulous and a little bit political!

For Demi-Paradise Productions at Lancaster Castle -Blood Red Roses"The dark history of Lancaster Castle in words and music."Christmas with the Watsons "A Sherlock Holmes house party"

Wild as The White Waves - The Life and Poetry of Edna St Vincent Millay- Edinburgh Festival,Tourand Adventures in Poetryfor BBC Radio 4"My childhood was so extraordinarily happy – full of bayberry bushes and queen-of-the-meadow. Cranberries too. I remember a swamp of cranberries that made a shortcut to the railroad station. It was down across that swamp my father went when my mother told him to go and not come back. Or maybe she said he might come back if he would do better. But whoever does better?"

For Quondam Arts - Unruly Women - National TourThe Lancashire Industrial riots led to the imprisonment and arrest of dozens of handloom weavers, among them a few women, who, after a farce of a trial, were sentenced to transportation and shipped to Australia. Theirs is a story of universal relevance, of ordinary people suffering through history at the hands of a government which doesn’t listen, doesn’t see and, ultimately, doesn’t care.

"The government says it's progressThe price we have to pay.For England's tomorrowWe must give our today.And the villages dieAnd the handlooms are stillAnd we bury our childrenIn the shadow of the millAnd I try to see a futureBut I don't know howI was born and bred a weaverBut what am I fit for now?"

For Mikron Theatre Co - Hell and High Water- 40th Anniversary Waterways Tour In 1761 there were two earthquakes in London, a transit of Venus was observed in 120 locations around the world, George the Third was crowned King and, on July 17th, the first boatload of coals was borne smoothly along the Barton Aqueduct over the River Irwell on the Bridgewater Canal - the engineering marvel that was the wonder of its age."Gentlemen, we are dealing with water, and water, like a giant, is only safe when laid on its back. It has to be tamed and, gentlemen, I have found a way to tame it."

Beyond Measure - a one woman verse monologue - Lancaster Season of ShakespeareAt the end of Shakespeare's Measure for Measure, what happens to Isabella?

“What’s mine is yours and what is yours is mine.”What made him think that I would be just fineWith that? How could he be so sure of me? Imagine for a minute, if you can,What power to be a Duke, to be a man!

Small Acts of Courage

Is there a recipe for happiness? Sometimes life conspires against you. Sometimes you forget who you are. Sometimes you lose hope.And sometimes you meet someone who just might change your life forever.There are lives that make a difference.